Hello Tunza Eco-generation! Here?s my second article with Jr. Naturalist Camp. Today the camp officially ended and I would like to introduce what has been going on. Seeing kids enthusiastically get involve with nature was truly amazing. Every day they made me smile and feel proud of what I contribute to our local community. Most amazingly, it was incredible and impressive to see kids clearly understand their roles to protect environment. Here we go with the first day of Jr. Naturalist Camp.

I?ve participated in Jr. Naturalist as intern last year too, but as always first day was a bit overwhelming. Not only dealing with kids but also new interns newly joined this year, it was a bit overwhelming. But here?s why I joined again this year dedicating entire week for this program. Jr. Naturalist is a class where we teach kids how to appreciate nature. We teach kids to value living things-whether small or big, because a lot of kids don?t see small little bugs as living things and often like to rather play with them. Kids go out every day to observe nature, learn interesting plants and animals, and have fun. We teach kids how to respect things around them, especially the nature. Overall, kids think about what they can do to contribute to environmental conservation starting with little steps.

The first day?s topic was using 5 senses to observe the nature. Of course, for safety, taste was excluded except when we had kids try tasting the wild grapes. Through this topic, kids learned how to observe tracks to guess animals in the marsh- most commonly raccoons, skunks, and even coyotes. They smell fragrant plants, such as sages. They learned difference between the leaves and described different colors out in the marsh. Nature Garden was also a good spot for them to observe different native plants around local area. After we came back to nature center, we also had them make foot prints by mixing powder and water. They were enjoying the process and learned how to distinguish between different footprints.

First day seemed a little chaotic. Not all of them were truly appreciating nature from heart yet. Some still wanted to bother little bugs, didn?t know how to recycle, or step on bushes around. But they also started to change their view. They were fascinated how much living things they can observe inside the marsh- such as pacific tree frogs, damselflies, dragonflies, cabbage whites, harvester ants, and so on. Considering that they are relatively young (around ages of 8-13), kids were paying attention well to learn about each names of the living things we found. Simply, they were starting their initiative step to be a Jr. Naturalist.